


On the Road Again

by Barkour



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:14:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5659162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Iron Bull met a traveler on the road. AU, before the game's events.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Road Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kayurafii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayurafii/gifts).



> For the Adoribull Holiday Exchange! Kayura prompted the Bull and Dorian meet before the game, and so off I went.

They met a traveler on the road, some thirty miles out from the nearest halfway civilized town in Nevarra. He was sitting in a tree back from the main thoroughfare, and Skinner spotted him.

"Shem in a tree," she said.

"What," said Stitches, "is that one of your songs? Chief, stop swinging your arms, I'm trying to get this damned bandage tied."

"I don't know that one," said Dalish to Skinner, "is that from your clan?"

"Thought that was a mosquito," said the Bull. "Aw, hey, let it bleed. It's clotting. Look pretty good as a scar. What do you think that is, a scimitar?" He flexed his arm up to examine the cut framing his biceps. 

Stitches swore as the ends of the bandage escaped him. 

"Leave Stitches be, chief," Krem called from the wagon trundling ahead of them. "We need him too much for you to make his head pop off."

"No," said Skinner sharply. She pointed. "Shem in a tree."

The Bull looked. A man was halfway up a scraggly tree, behind three other trees, all with better spaced branches and thicker foliage, but nearer to the road. The man stared back at the Bull. He said, "Bollocks."

"Shit," said the Bull in mild surprise. "Shem in a tree."

Dalish, looking thoughtful, said, "Shem in a tree. Shem ... in a tree."

The man was still swearing. "Vishante kaffas!"

"'vint in a tree," the Bull corrected.

"What's he speaking?" Krem asked.

"Mostly swearing."

They'd pass him soon. Hard to tell at a distance, but the man looked in poor repair; he'd mottling to his face that suggested fighting, and no sack to his back. The Bull considered the bandit operation the Chargers had only just laid waste to for the good of the countryside, and a substantial reward from the constabulary thirty miles up the road.

"Want I should call the stop?"

The Bull shook his head at Krem. "Nah. We'll catch up. You can handle our guests?"

Krem sneered at the Bull. "Please, chief. The little lambs are sleeping." His maul had done that.

"Keep 'em dreaming," the Bull said. He gestured to the footed company with him to follow. "Put your knives away, Skinner. He might be friendly."

"He's shem," she said.

"She's got a point," said Stitches.

"She's got twelve," said the Bull, "and you're shem, too."

Stitches and Skinner exchanged a look. 

"Watching you," Skinner told him.

Dalish was whispering rapidly under her breath. Protective spell, mayhap. The Bull hadn't much worked to learn the high pattering tongue she used for magic craft. The lines of power tucked between the words gave him the creepies under his skin.

The matted leaves and sticks that lined the forest's floor crunched satisfyingly underfoot. The man's sleeve had caught on a branch, and he swore again as the Bull drew up even with the tree. He tried for purchase on the trunk, but his boots, a fine leather worn thin, with soles meant for looks rather than work, skidded off the bark. He was very quick to plant the right foot heavily on the branch again.

"Looks like you're stuck," the Bull called. 

The man gave up his struggling. He looked at the Bull. He'd dark skin and black tousled hair and a sluggishly oozing gouge over a fresh black eye.

"So it seems," he said.

"Need a hand?"

The man considered this. "No," he said, "I've two of my own. Why don't you run along." He fluttered his hand at the Bull.

Of all things, the Bull felt not amused, but charmed. "Got a hell of a shiner."

"A what?"

Stitches stepped forward. "Your eye."

The man's confusion cleared. Lightly he touched two fingers to his cheek then winced.

"Yes, well. I'm doing rather better than--" He glanced at the Bull and then away. "This strapping fellow."

The Bull laughed.

"Hm," said Skinner. "I like him."

"Don't be deceived by my dashing, some might say rakish appearance," said the man, one arm pinned above his head, and his legs bent at odd angles as he braced on the trunk and a branch. If he lost his balance and fell, the Bull saw, his arm would wrench from the socket. "My wits are sharp, and my charms, without number."

"Think I'll cut him out." Skinner drew a boning knife from her bandolier.

"That won't be necessary!" The man's voice rose.

Dalish clapped her hands. "That's the note!"

"How's about I get you down," said the Bull. He set his toe against the trunk and pushed up to grab the man's steadying branch.

"Again, that won't be necessary! I assure you, I'm more than content with my tree--"

"We're not going to rob you," the Bull said.

"As I have nothing else to donate," the man said, or perhaps had not stopped saying, "but of course for the clothes on my back and the shoes on my feet--"

"They won't fit me."

"I can see _that_ ," said the man. His eyes skimmed over the Bull's shoulder, then again, he looked away.

The Bull grunted. "Dalish, get up there and free him."

Humming to herself, Dalish bounded up the tree, using the Bull's back as a spring-board up the trunk. 

"How do you do," she said by way of introduction, and she pulled her own knife from her belt and cut through the man's sleeve without pause.

"That is linen!" the man protested, and Dalish said, "Oh, well, it's gone now," and pushed him off the branch.

The Bull caught the man easily in his waiting arms, and laughing, he let off the trunk and turned, carrying him without struggle. The man's hands gripped at the Bull's chest. He'd a look of absolute shock, perhaps even outrage, on his strong, fine-made features.

"How--"

"So, hey," the Bull said, "there you go," and he set the man gently to his feet.

"I--" The man's palms were warm, callused at an angle from the space between thumb and finger to his wrist. His fingers spread wide upon the Bull's breast. "That was hardly-- I could have got myself down."

"Free of charge," the Bull told him. He winked.

The man's grimy brow folded. "Do you have something in your eye?" Then he realized he'd his hands on the Bull's chest, and he whipped them away as if the Bull were on fire.

"Yes," said the man. "All right. Well. Thank you. That was your kind deed for the day. Well, I'm out of the tree now, so you colorful lot may be on your way."

"Your staff's over there," said Dalish from the tree. "You want I should get it for you?"

"What staff?" said the man loudly. "Oh. My walking staff. Yes. If you would be so kind. But you must realize I can't possibly repay you for such generosity."

"Now what kind of assholes would we be," said the Bull, "if we rescued you and then stole all the coin from your right boot?"

The man looked at him in horror. 

"He's going to shit himself, keep teasing him like that," said Stitches. "Dalish, quit nancing. I need ice for his face."

Dalish reemerged from the leaves. She swung a staff, rich, dark wood carved in thick swirls up to wrap about a raw green stone as big around as the Bull's -- fist, he thought. The man stood very close to the Bull, and he smelled tantalizingly of long nights in the woods. He had a gorgeous mouth, too.

"Ooh, good balance," said Dalish. She thumped the focusing stone on her palm and gave it a squeeze. "Must have cost you a fortune. Rich 'vint shem."

"My favorite," said Skinner. She grinned.

"Thank you, yes," said the man in a hurry. "My walking stick. You've found it." He grabbed it from Dalish, who gave it up with a laugh.

The man's hands slid naturally into place on the polished wood. The color of the wood was darkened along certain swirls. His hands fit to those trails.

Yep, thought the Bull, that gem was definitely as big around as his own clenched fist.

"So," said the Bull. "'vint mage on the road. All your money in your boot. Thought you could take on all those bandits on your own, but they got a few swings on you. Grabbed your rucksack, too."

The man swallowed. "What a fertile imagination your broad friend has," he remarked to the group. 

"Tip your head back," Stitches said. He pulled a handkerchief from his sporran. "Ice, Dalish."

The Bull was grinning, a slow thing. "Pretty fertile. Yeah. But don't fret your pretty head about it. We took care of those bandits, didn't we, Chargers?"

"Horns up," said Dalish absently. 

She pulled a small block of ice from the air, the air that dried in the Bull's nose. Frost marked her fingertips. She handed the ice to Stitches. 

Skinner crept near, silent on her toes. Magic fascinated her, made her youngish in a way nothing could. It was a clinical interest the man had showed, though, unblinking as he observed Dalish's fingers pinch and tug through the air. 

"Chargers?" said the man. He looked Dalish over. No flirtation to it, just an intrigue the Bull recognized as professional. Hm, hm, thought the Bull.

"Bull's Chargers, you heard of us?" The Bull crossed his arms over his chest. The itching scratch on his arm pulled open. He let it. The man's eyes darted to the Bull. His gaze caught on the Bull's arms.

Stitches wrapped the ice in the handkerchief and pressed it firmly to the man's eye. Though the man flinched, he stayed as he was under Stitches' check-over. 

"Let me guess." The man's voice dried too. "You're the Bull. And they're the Chargers."

"Figured it out, huh."

"Very clever," the man said. "And you aren't bandits, but, what? A traveling charity?"

"Mercenaries," said the Bull, "licensed too. On the up and up. One hundred percent legit." He scratched at his chin. "Well, outside the Free Marches."

"I was under the impression the Free Marches didn't much care for legitimacy."

"Depends on the city," said the Bull. "You don't get out much do you."

"And no one at all minds a Qunari running around Thedas, flexing his muscles at every stranded traveler he sees?"

"Stop flexing at the 'vint," Stitches said to the Bull without turning.

"Who's flexing?"

"You," said Skinner.

Dalish said, "We ought to catch up." The Bull turned his ear to her, listening. "Nightfall will be coming soon, and there's wolves 'round here. The dead kind."

"Nevarran shem," said Skinner darkly. She drew her boning knife along her leather trousers then sheathed it.

The Bull grunted agreement. "So. You want to come with us, or make your own way?"

The man eyed the Bull around Stitches' wrist. "You're awfully trusting," he said, as if disbelieving, "of a strange Tevinter mage. Don't your people bind and gag their mages?"

The Bull made a show of looking around the trees, the road, the darkening sky.

"This look like Par Vollen to you?"

"I wouldn't know," said the man. "I've never been."

"You wouldn't enjoy it."

"I'll trust you on that."

"He hasn't tied me up, for what it's worth," Dalish offered.

The man made a noise in his throat. "Yes, but what's to say you won't tie me up anyway? Strip my boots from me?"

"Hey, if feet's what you're into," said the Bull. "But I'd buy you dinner first."

His eyes widened. The man looked dartingly about, but Skinner only grumbled and Dalish rolled her eyes. Stitches, the Bull wagered, feigned deafness.

The Bull changed tack. "You got a name? Or you want we should call you 'vint?"

"Dorian," said the man. He sounded awful young. Without that frazzled mustache, the Bull thought, he'd look it too. "Dorian Pavus. I suppose I should thank you for plucking me out of that tree."

"You could," said the Bull. "But we didn't do it for a reward."

"Shem," said Skinner with ancient disgust.

"She keeps saying that," said Dorian Pavus to the world, "but what does it mean?"

"Don't fuss, shem," Dalish told him. She patted his head. "You'll learn."

"I hope not," Dorian said.

The Bull shrugged.

*

Town, in the morning. Dorian, who'd spent the night in one of the wagons, looked horrendous. The bruises had settled and swelled, and his hair was a wild tangle.

"How does anyone sleep like that?" he complained to the Bull. 

The Bull hadn't forgot him precisely, but put thoughts of the man aside as he'd worked through the business of a mercenary company. Dorian had sought him out on foot outside the town's walls, after the company pitched morning camp. Checking the line of captive bandits, and reviewing the paperwork for the turn in, the Bull was surprised to find Dorian pegging his heels.

"Morning," said the Bull.

"Good morning and good day," said Dorian. "The dwarf next to me broke wind all night long."

"That's Rocky for you," said the Bull. 

Dorian looked narrowly at him. "You had a man watching me, didn't you?"

"What, me?" said the Bull. "I'm awfully trusting."

"No, it's a relief," Dorian said. "I was wondering if you were a simpleton."

"My boys can handle themselves," said the Bull. "Rocky never farts in his sleep."

"How could you possibly know that?"

The Bull only shrugged, then shouted for Skinner to stop poking at the prisoners with her knives. By the time he had that all sorted out, Dorian had gone.

A shame, the Bull thought. They could always use another able body. Thinking a little too much about his able body, thought the Bull. Ah, well.

"I know that look," said Krem, breaking away from conference with some of the greener recruits. "Just check that they're married before you fuck 'em this time. Or that their spouse is into cuckolding. I like this town. I don't want soldiers with long pikes chasing us out."

"One time, Krem," said the Bull, injured. "And hey. How was I to know what married meant?" 

"You thought it was a food, didn't you?"

"Well," the Bull said, "he sure as shitting gave me a lot to eat."

"I hope Andraste smites you," said Krem. "I'm set to inherit the company, aye?"

"Keep your mouth flapping, and I'll start looking at Stitches," said the Bull. "All right, let's round 'em up. Daddy feels like getting paid."

"Don't call yourself daddy," said Krem. "That's not what daddy means."

"Start reeling in the line," the Bull shouted, and they went to town.

*

A week of leave sounded a fair reward for a simple job with a high bounty. The constabulary had proved so grateful they'd added three nights free lodging and free drinks at the town's two taverns, at the behest of the tavern's keepers. The Bull figured they'd yank the last two nights from the tab once they saw the damage the Chargers could do to a keg, but you took what you could get.

He was on his fourth tankard of good ale when Dorian found him again. A hand touched his arm briefly, beneath the scratch, and the Bull turned as Dorian, no longer touching him, sat at the bar.

"Hey, there you are," said the Bull. "And in new leathers, too."

These were better suited for the road, tough rather than fine. Dorian said, "It seemed the appropriate choice. For the time being. How do I look?"

"Like shit," the Bull said, and Dorian snorted. "But I bet under all those bruises you look something sweet."

"Sweet, I've not heard," Dorian said, "and I'm not sure I care for the taste of it," but he sounded pleased.

"I never did thank you for helping me."

The Bull demurred. "Wasn't just me."

The tavern's light was dim and smoky. Long shadows moved through the air, silhouettes that walked laughingly across the bar, across the thick bones of Dorian's face. Even with the bruises he looked like something the Bull wanted on his tongue. 

Dorian blinked slowly, his lashes falling then rising half-mast. It was a calculated move, only slightly hampered by the swelling of his blackened eye. The Bull found he admired him for the calculation.

"So," said Dorian.

"So," the Bull agreed.

Dorian ran his fingertips along the bar's edge. He had worn lines at the bases of his fingers, spots where he would have worn rings till the bandits had taken them, or he'd sold them for coin.

"What do you charge for escorting a poor traveler to safe harbor?"

"Told you, it's on the house," said the Bull. "Besides, it probably cost you some sovereigns, taking out a room with my boys claiming most of 'em."

A cunning smile like silver darted across Dorian's bruised mouth. "Oh, but I'm one of your boys. So far as the town is concerned."

"That so." Again, he charmed the Bull.

"Only for the night, of course," said Dorian. "I must be on my way in the morning."

"Well, that's a shame," the Bull said. "You look like you could hold your own."

He slid his tankard to Dorian, who took it in hand to drink from it. The ale left a sheen on his lips. Dorian licked them. His fingers were thick, long, artfully curved about the mug.

He looked at the Bull.

"Why did you help me?"

"You needed helping," said the Bull.

"And that's all," said Dorian.

"Don't sound so surprised," the Bull said. "Nobody's ever been kind to you before?"

Dorian looked at him. He licked his lips again. He touched the tankard; he drew his hand away. He stood from the stool. His shadow fell along the Bull, to touch his chest, his throat, his face as he looked up at Dorian.

"I think," said Dorian, "that I'd like to be kind to you."

"You don't owe me anything," said the Bull. 

"No," said Dorian, who had fled Tevinter only recently, for his own reasons the Bull would not ask. A smile curved the corner of his mouth. He'd groomed his mustache to a wicked twist. Now his smile mirrored it. "But I'd like to take it anyway."

How could the Bull say no to that?

*

Sex was easy when you knew what to do, and you had a sturdy bed to do it on. He asked Dorian and Dorian asked for the Bull's cock rubbed between his ass cheeks. The Bull obliged. Cock in had never been a necessity, and oh, shit, the view. The Bull squeezed a cheek in each hand and rocked his hips forward.

Dorian said, "For god's sake, harder," and the Bull let go of one side of his ass to slap it. Dorian swore.

"Hard, that's how you like it?"

"Obviously!" said Dorian, ass up, a hand between his legs to fondle his own balls. "Or else I wouldn't have said so!"

"Can't go too hard," said the Bull. Idly he smacked Dorian's ass again. Dorian jumped. His back undulated a moment. "Don't want to break you, big guy."

Some people liked that, the thought of breaking. Dorian flared hotter. 

"You could certainly try," he snapped. "But I don't think you're trying at all."

"You always smart off this much when a guy's fucking you?"

"Oh, but you aren't fucking me," said Dorian. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled, lean and crafty. "But you wish you were."

"That your game?" 

The Bull pulled back, smacked Dorian's ass hard to see him jiggle and then the muscles clench, and shoved forward harder now, his fat cock pushing between those fat cheeks.

"You want to make me mad so I'll take it."

Dorian's breath caught. His shoulder rocked with the movement of his hand, now squeezing and tugging at his own prick.

"But I'm not going to do it," said the Bull. "Not unless you ask me for it. You want to ask me, Dorian? Ask me." He punctuated it with light slaps to his ass, alternating sides then squeezing gently as he continued to rock. Dorian's skin was soft around his cock, and hot, and the muscles tensed then eased then tensed again.

Mutinously Dorian turned his face to the sheets. His hips were beginning to twist now, drawing tight circles in the air as he fucked his hand. Yeah, that hand, thought the Bull. He remembered the calluses, the particular lines they followed. Strong and rough on the Bull's chest. 

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do."

"Talk all night?"

"I'm going to fuck you like this," said the Bull, "till I come on your ass. And then I'm going to lick it off you--" Dorian's breath was catching. "--turn you over, suck your cock down--" 

Dorian's hips jerked, and the Bull left off his ass to grab his hips and hold him still to slide his dick over that tight asshole.

"You'd do that, would you?" Dorian managed. "Suck my cock? On your knees?"

The Bull hummed, pleased by the thought. "I bet you taste good, Dorian. Bet you scream when I get my tongue under your skin."

"Do you have--any concept how filthy--"

"Oh, babe," said the Bull, "I wanna eat you out," and Dorian said, "Andraste, holy above others--why don't I fuck you?"

"Why don't you?" the Bull countered, and he reached to squeeze his own tightened balls so he spilled white and thick over Dorian's asshole.

Dorian's cock, it proved, was as delicious as the Bull hoped. He tongued the foreskin down the shaft, swallowed the fat, dark head. It felt even better in his ass, Dorian's balls slapping against the Bull as he fucked him.

"C'mon, big guy, that's it," said the Bull. "Fuck me. Yeah. You wanted it hard so do it harder. Come on!"

Sweat, clinging to the black hair curled across Dorian's chest. His throat arched. His head fell back. Boots, set neatly by the door, clothes dropped along the floor. Bruises marked Dorian's arms where he'd taken a few blows. The Bull thought of the fair few bandits they'd found already dead, skin burnt. 

Dorian fucked deep inside the Bull, the crook of his dick rubbing sweetly against the Bull's gland. The Bull groaned.

"Oh, yes," groaned Dorian too; that was all he said. 

In this act, it seemed, he could not speak. He bit his lip. His throat worked, muscles dragging beneath the skin. The Bull wanted to pin Dorian's legs up over his horns and suck his cock again. Heat moved in the Bull's belly. His cock ached. He imagined Dorian, bound in rope. How he'd flutter his eyelashes and smirk at the Bull, as if the Bull were bound and not he. 

At the very last Dorian came, ticking hotly within the Bull. The Bull pushed Dorian, gasping, sweated, beautiful in his breathing, to his back and bent to clean his cock.

"Oh, don't," said Dorian, "that was--just inside--" and he sighed deeply as the Bull stroked his hands up Dorian's chest.

"You're hard again."

"Don't worry about me," said the Bull.

"Mm," said Dorian. His eyes had closed. His arms stretched, fingers curling against the wall. "Do you know? What I'd like most?"

The Bull, hard and throbbing, licked gently at Dorian's balls. "Tell me."

Dorian was smiling beatifically at the ceiling. "On my face. All over my face."

"Got it," said the Bull. He rose to give him it. Dorian was still smiling as the Bull grunted and came across his darkened lips, his nose, the battered lines of his brow. Dorian licked at his lips. Come smeared his tongue. The Bull managed a final weak line of it, white upon Dorian's teeth then mustache.

Dorian's lashes rose. The bruised eye glimmered.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

The Bull bent to kiss him. The tips of his horns scraped along the wall. Dorian turned his hands so his fingers curled instead up the Bull's horns. Downstairs the Chargers were singing the anthem. The Bull pulled Dorian closer. Dorian said, "I," and the Bull kissed him again, and that was the last of it.

Easy, yes, if you knew what to do.

*

In the morning the Bull woke alone. He'd expected that. He stretched and got out of bed to piss, and on his way from the pot to the bowl of washwater, he stepped on a square of cloth. A handkerchief, linen. Someone had embroidered the initials DLLP in each corner, in a steady, elegant hand that leaned left.

The Bull considered it. In the end he folded it in quarters and pocketed it. As a joke he thought if he should meet Dorian on the road, he'd return the token and thank him for the thought. Then he put Dorian from his mind and went downstairs to see about breakfast. 

A small group of the Chargers had risen early, too. They applauded him in his descent of the stairs.

"Congratulations on the sex," said Grugg.

"Aw, you shouldn't have," said the Bull.

"Hope they weren't married."

"I didn't ask," the Bull said. He scratched absently at his arm. He thought of the handkerchief in his pocket and of wrapping it about his arm, but he imagined Dorian would complain about the blood. 

"It was the shem wasn't it," said Skinner. Dalish, face-down on the table beside her, began to sing in a high, sweet voice.

"Not the 'vint," said Rocky. "He farted all night!"

"What can I say," the Bull said as he took Dalish's plate of cooling pancakes as his own. "I'm all about bringing people together. What's she singing?"

"Don't look at me," said Rocky. The Bull looked at Skinner.

"Shems in trees," said Skinner. She shrugged.

Dalish broke off to say, "My mother used to sing it."

"Your mother used to sing about shems in trees?"

"No, I think they were birds," said Dalish. "But the chief didn't lie down with a bird."

"He sang like one," said the Bull.

"Ugh," said Grugg, "I'm done eating. Here's the sausages, chief."

"You're all right, Grugg," said the Bull, and he ate his breakfast.

He didn't forget Dorian, precisely, but he was only a traveler that Bull had met on the road. He did use the handkerchief after a while, to staunch a shallow gouge in his thigh, then when he had that cold in Antiva. The handkerchief, folded neatly in his pocket, was somewhat the worse for wear that night in Redcliffe when Aginas pulled open a door to the chantry. 

The mage standing before the rift said, "Iron Bull!" in surprise.

"Aw," said the Bull, "you remember me."

**Author's Note:**

> The "you thought it was food" joke is tribute to/inspired by Dragonball, perhaps one of the finer romantic comedies of the 1980s.


End file.
